


Happy New Year or The Truth Hiding At The Bottom Of A Bottle

by under_my_blue_umbrella



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: (un)happy new year, Gen, Missed Opportunities, Robin is a nice person, Strike is drunk, melancholic strike
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 11:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17243573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/under_my_blue_umbrella/pseuds/under_my_blue_umbrella
Summary: It's New Year's Eve, three o'clock in the morning, and Cormoran is hiding the truth at the bottom of a sixpack of Doom Bar.





	Happy New Year or The Truth Hiding At The Bottom Of A Bottle

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write a Cormoran Strike story for awhile now, but I've been so in awe with JK's writing, so impressed with the fics I'm reading here and so nervous about not getting it right that nothing would hatch. Today, out of the blue, this melancholic little ficlet popped into my brain. It's unbetaed and unedited, but I thought I'd post it before I lose my nerve.
> 
> Happy New Year, everyone. And a warning: Here be sadness. My muse is a gloomy one.

#### Lesbia, I am mad:

#### my brain is entirely warped

#### by this project of adoring

#### and having you

#### and now it flies into fits

#### of hatred at the mere thought of your

#### doing well, and at the same time

#### it can’t help but seek what

#### is unimaginable–

#### your affection. This it will go on

#### hunting for, even if it

#### means my total and utter annihilation.

  


#### Catullus, 75

  


“Morons,” Strike muttered as firecrackers fizzed off into the night a little further down the street, followed by a loud bang probably tearing a dustbin apart. “New Year’s Eve was three hours ago!” He yelled into the darkness. “Learn to read your bloody watches!”

Footsteps scuttled away on the wet pavement and he saw three lanky figures disappearing down Denmark Street. Teenagers, most likely. 

“Bloody idiots,” he reconfirmed, aiming for the doorway of No. 24. He was drunk, and more than just a little. Staying sober just hadn’t been an option at his sister Lucy’s New Years Eve party. Not with her husband breathing down his neck about the agency’s financial status, insurance options and _which economic goals was he planning on achieving in the new year?_

Bugger.

If it hadn’t been for his nephew Jack and his ongoing hero-worship for “Uncle Cormoran”, and if he hadn’t taken to the lad almost against his own will after that fateful night at the hospital half a year ago, he would’ve found an excuse to avoid Lucy’s party. Instead, with Nick and Ilsa out of the country - in Las Vegas, _for fuck’s sake_ \- he would’ve destroyed a sixpack of beer with Shanker, perched on their usual spots in Whitechapel Cemetery, toasting to Leda Strike’s gravestone. Afterwards, he would’ve gone home to his tiny flat, ending the year falling asleep in front of the tv, surrounded by beer bottles. Not the most cheerful of traditions, he realized. But a tradition nonetheless, implemented the year he’d split up with Charlotte and spent the night of December 31st passed out on a fold-out cot in his office. 

Well, he may have missed his appointment with Shanker, and midnight may have come and gone, but it wasn’t too late for the passing-out-drunk-in-front-of-the-tv part of the ritual. In fact, drinking himself into oblivion was all he wanted to do right now.

Robin’s face appeared in his head. Her happy smile when he’d asked her about her plans for New Year’s Eve, the insane thought of asking her to spend it with him threatening to burst forth from his mouth.

“I’ve been invited to a party. Vanessa.” Nose and cheeks a little flushed from the cold, her skin glowing, she’d added: “David is accompanying me. You remember him - David MacFarlane? The Joggston case? He helped us with the building plans?”

“Oh.” Cormoran had smiled, feeling as if he’d suddenly developed internal bleeding. “Yeah. I remember him. Nice guy.”

That had been that. And now, stumbling up the stairs to his flat, Strike still felt the pang of jealousy deep in his guts. Robin and that architect. He couldn’t blame her. Tall, handsome, polite and intelligent, he would make a good match with Robin. 

_Not like the fat ugly bastard who missed his chance._

Lurching through the door of his flat, Strike almost got tangled up in his coat taking it off, and it took him three attempts to hang it on its designated hook by the doorframe. The plastic bag holding a sixpack of Doom Bar clanked dangerously as he all but dropped it near the armchair crammed below the dirty skylight. 

With a deep sigh, he let himself fall into the chair, undoing and dropping his trousers on the way down. This, too, was a well-rehearsed ritual - kicking off his left shoe and slipping the trouser leg off while keeping it dangling around the ankle of his false right foot. Detaching the prosthesis with a plop and setting it aside with a little salute. Rubbing the end of his stump, sore after a night full of standing and sitting uncomfortably on the floor playing with Jack. 

Strike retrieved a beer from the bag and opened it with the cigarette lighter he dug out of his discarded trousers. He took a swig, exhaling. The pain in his leg was particularly bad today, and he wondered how much more drunk he would have to get to numb it enough for sleep. Bottle in one hand, he reached for the remote with the other and clicked the tv on. Reruns of Dr. Who were flickering across the screen. Just as well.

He was into his second bottle of Doom Bar and taking deep drags from his cigarette, the TARDIS hurtling through time and space in front of him, when his mobile rang.

Too drunk to decipher the caller ID, he answered it without checking. “Yup?”

“Hi, Cormoran, it’s me.”

_Robin._

“Cormoran, are you there?” 

Strike shook himself, realizing he must have let several seconds pass without answering.

“Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. What’s up?” He forced himself to enunciate clearly.

The sounds of an ongoing party were travelling into his ear. Music, voices, laughter. 

“Nothing,” Robin said cheerfully. “I only wanted to wish you a happy new year.”

“That’s… nice of you,” he said, moved beyond reason. After all, it’s what you did on New Years Eve, call family and friends and wish them a happy new year. It didn’t mean anything. And yet, at three in the morning, from a party, with a really handsome bloke dancing with her (he could not, _must not_ think of her wearing the Green Dress while they danced), she’d remembered to call him, her business partner, her… what? _The arsehole who messed it up_ , his addled brain offered.

“You’re a really nice person,” his mouth said into the phone.

Robin laughed. “You’ve told me that before, you know?”

“I have?” He blinked.

“When I picked you up from the pub after your ex got engaged. When you were a little drunk and we had kebabs.” From the smile he could hear through the telephone, it sounded like a fond memory. 

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

A pause. Then Robin asked, cautiously: “Are you drunk, Cormoran?”

He nodded and only five seconds later realized that she couldn’t see him. “A little.”

Another pause. 

“Are you alright?”

Another nod. For some reason, Strike’s eyes had started to sting. He wiped at them. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Robin, sounding slightly worried. 

_No, I’m not. I’m not fine, because I remember how it feels to have you in my arms, and now you’re in his, and it’s my own bloody fault. I should’ve said something. Long ago. I should’ve-_

“I’m sure,” he said, voice firm.

“Well,” Robin replied, and Strike heard someone saying her name in the background. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, closing his eyes and staring at the afterimages flickering behind his lids. “See you tomorrow.”

She hung up, and he tossed the phone aside, reaching for another bottle of beer.


End file.
